Achieving Schooling for All in Africa
Costs Commitment and Gender

Several years in preparation, this study grew out of an extensive programme of work on gender and primary schooling in Africa. The authors want to understand why universal schooling with no gender bias is still unavailable in all of Africa.

The book then moves on to examine the causes of under-enrolment in a more micro context, utilising results from a major international research programme on gender and primary schooling in Africa. This has comprised a set of country studies, using the same research methodology. Nine countries in SSA - Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia - have been included over the past five years, since 1998. The causes of past performance and new strategies for educational expansion and reform are examined for each of these cases. Later chapters examine the disappointing aid record for education during the 1990s. The challenges for international aid to provide resources and help secure reforms in support of the international development goals in education are also outlined.

Poverty, schooling and gender: some theoretical issues
causes of enrolment outcomes - costs versus commitment
the gender gap in primary enrolments - a cross-country analysis
costs versus commitment in nine countries
gender disparities in schooling: causes and constraints
policies to achieve schooling for all
can aid to African schooling be expected to close the financial and policy gaps?
what have we learned?